Sex was always the most taboo of subjects growing up. It was forbidden to even talk about it. The only understanding I had about sex at all growing up was in accordance to the rules around it. The older I got, the more those rules stood out, but it was always about the rules.

I knew sex was to be saved for marriage. I knew that babies should only be born to married couples. And I knew that families meant fathers and mothers and kids; there were simply no other alternatives. Men held the Priesthood and were to provide for their families. Women were to be in the home and raising children. That was simply the way of things.

I learned about masturbation at the age of 12. The bishop asked me if I followed the law of chastity and I asked what that was. He then asked me if I masturbated, and I asked what that was. And then he told me. But it turned out that I already knew. An older sibling had molested me when I was younger, had had me do that very thing to him. Lots of times. It had never occurred to me to try that for myself. After the bishop told me, I went home and tried it. And, god, was it amazing… but the release was accompanied by a deep and abiding shame and nausea. God was disappointed in me.

Between the ages of 12 and 18, almost every conversation at church for my age group seemed to revolve around chastity and morality. I couldn’t have even defined the words, but they were part of every conversation. And every conversation was about the rules. Never be alone with the opposite sex. Kissing was fine, but it must be chaste. Only date other Mormons, and then only in groups. Women should be modest. When dancing, it was always best to keep space between the two people. No dating until 16. No “heavy petting”, no “dry-humping”, no removal of clothing, and definitely no intercourse. Pregnancy before marriage was the ultimate shame, except for homosexuality itself. And definitely, definitely no viewing of pornography. Porn was talked about almost more than anything else. “One single image of pornography will seer itself into your brain forever and ever and will never leave. Even one second, and you are permanently tainted.”

Strangely, there was no sex education. There was no talk about consent, or avoiding disease, or self-defense, or a sharing of statistics about the rates of sexual violence. Only those same lines, over and over again. Modesty. Chastity. Purity. Repentance. Sexual six was among the greatest of sins.

As a teenager, I was a part of groups that received lessons about spirituality. The men were told repeatedly to avoid temptation. And the women were told that their virtue was their single greatest asset. They must save themselves for their husbands. If there was a plate full of un-chewed gum, and one single chewed piece, everyone would take the un-chewed pieces. If a girl wanted a good husband, a worthy priesthood holder, she should never let herself be, well, pre-chewed. Damaged goods worth less than the other pieces.

I turned 12 in 1990. In the following 7 years, I was given multiple books that preached against the evils of sexual sin. I was told constantly, almost obsessively, that I needed to avoid being alone with women, avoid pornography, avoid masturbation. If I was good and faithful, as a priesthood holder and as a missionary, a beautiful wife would be my reward. The prophets grew bizarrely specific at times. They said that singing hymns in your head constantly was one way to keep your thoughts pure. They said that having wet dreams was normal, but touching yourself was not. One prophet suggested tying your hands to your headboard at night to keep from touching yourself. (I tried it once). They emphasized that all sins could be forgiven, but sexual sins carried greater consequences.

And the words they used to describe me, a boy who was attracted to other boys, were harsh. They called homosexuality aberrant, a crime against nature, the sin next to murder, a perversion, an abomination. I was evil, sheer evil, just for being different, and I could never, never act on that sin.

As I grew older, I began to realize how obsessed with sex the Mormon church seemed to be. The founders of the Mormon church bartered for wives. The first leaders had them by the dozens. The gave counsel to the women to submit to their husbands, to follow the commands of god. They wanted to not only acquire women, but to control them, to obtain and rule over them. Seventy year old men with 30 wives, some also 70 years old, kept marrying young women, ages 22 and 19 and 15. They possessed them. They at times promised destruction by the swords of angels if these women didn’t submit.

But it started long before then. Men in the old testament were granted concubines, harems, and handmaids to do their bidding. Jesus himself was born to a virgin. The bible obsesses with sex like all the rest.

Heavenly father, or god, was to be revered and praised and worshiped. Heavenly mothers, all the millions of them, should never be discussed or mentioned. Women belonged behind their husbands, in clean organized lines. Male children got to become like their fathers, female children like their mothers. Save yourselves for your husbands, then belong to them forever.

In recent years, these topics are finally being talked about, and outrage continues. The issues are still there. The rules are still in place. Just a few days ago, the current prophet gave a speech about how he can’t apologize for these words as they are commands by god. Homosexuality remains forbidden; gay young men and women are meant to be celibate to be right before god. Abortion is forbidden. Sex education and consent and pregnancy prevention topics are still frowned upon. And the abuses of men in power, in the Mormon religion and others, are being exposed, with the reaction being those of outrage and deep pain.

Statistics are showing that 1 in every 4 women (some statistics say 1 in 3) are subjected to sexual molestation or violence at some point in their lives, and almost always, almost universally, by men. And it is 1 in every 6 for men, also hurt by other men. And these statistics increase in societies that are highly religious. And Utah is very, very religious. I could comment a lot about other societies out there that have strict sexual purity or morality laws. Issues like rape, genital mutilation of women, the killing of “sexually impure women” and homosexuals, and domestic violence are part of the very foundation of these societies.

The world is slowly, slowly changing, slowly beginning to understand, that protecting children doesn’t mean protecting the religious definitions of virtue and chastity, but instead focuses on fair health care, education of women and girls, sex education, conversations about consent, etc. The world is getting there. But far too many are being hurt.

I am one of seven in my family. There are two boys and five girls. I’m gay. I also have a gay sister. So far as I know, I’m the only one of we seven who was sexually abused. Despite being so different, so damaged, so tainted, I held tightly to the sexual purity laws implemented on me. I did my best as a teenager to avoid pornography and masturbation, I considered sexual sin to be horrible in god’s eyes, I even avoided being attracted to others. I felt impure just for existing. I never kissed a woman until I was 27, and I never kissed a man until I was 32. I felt divided, at war with myself, for all that time.

But since then? Since leaving it all behind? I am a sexually active male, and sex is incredible. I don’t follow any of the church’s rules any longer, and I don’t judge others for doing so. I still focus on morality, on clean ethics, but by entirely different definitions. Consent, communication, fair treatment, kindness, love, consideration, education, equality.

I have a new religion. And it has nothing to do with keeping women and homosexuals in their place with strict rules. Instead, it creates entirely new seats at the table. It understands history, learns from it, and seeks to change the future. A future where we are outraged not by whether or not women are “pure” until marriage; instead we are outraged by child abuse, by rape, by societies being subjugated, and we are outraged by the men who are causing the harm.

I love reading what writers write about writing. They state how crucial writing is to their soul, how writing helps them convey their feelings and make sense of the world, how they can’t speak or eat or sleep until they have written and rewritten something. Writers, both fiction and non-fiction, both poets and memoirists, both journalists and essayists, they speak as if writing is a digestive process, upsetting their stomach and spirit until words appear on the page. They use grand metaphors to convey the importance of writing, like ocean tides rolling in to give life, or firework explosions, or carefully crafted recipes passed down over hundreds of years with hours of preparation going into the perfectly baked dish. Writers say that writing gives their soul rest.

And I understand this, I do. Writing has become crucial to my well-being. I feel better when I write. Writing helps me sort out my feelings, my thoughts. It helps me set goals. I feel accomplished and at peace when I’m writing, and disgruntled and discontent when I’m not. And for me, writing begets writing—when I write, I want to write more.

I’ve been writing more this past week, and it feels wonderful. I have to carve out time for it. I have to remove distractions from my life and sit down with coffee and a keyboard. I’m in a coffee shop now even, in a little Vegan café near a university in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It’s a half mile from where I’m staying. I made a decision to spend the first half of my day writing. During my twenty minute walk here, my brain rapid-fired ideas at me, and I had to carefully balance my heart and spirit and brain and gut and make a decision on what to spend my time on. There’s that graphic novel that’s been in my heart for over a year now. There is the sequel to my memoir. There’s a play that’s been in a slow-cooker for a while. There’s a few short story ideas, and a poem, and a blog. I want to write. I want to clear these ideas off the shelves and write so that I can create more space there, but I’m hesitant to start even one of these projects. Because I know that if I do, that finishing the project will take dozens of hours over dozens of weeks, and I will feel better if I do, but then I will have to commit myself to complete the thing, and then I will have to collaborate with others to try and make it happen, and that part always brings me pain and costs money and takes years. And even when I clear the space out, other projects will fill the shelves in my brain up and it will get all cluttered there, and so sometimes it is easier to just leave the projects on the shelves and not focus on them at all. I can just pretend that part of my brain doesn’t exist. I can just distract myself with other things. But that doesn’t work either, because not writing is far more frustrating than writing itself.

And now, suddenly, here I am writing about writing. And, as per usual, it helps, because I’m sorting these particular thoughts out, and there is peace there where just moments ago there was anxiety. Writing works, so long as I keep writing.

But now what? The inner publisher in me comes out. Who is my target audience? What am I writing this for? Is this an essay, a journal entry, a blog post, a book, an article, a story to be read aloud? If I begin this, will I be prepared to sustain it through to completion? Do I have the stamina, the inspiration, the discipline to get it there? And will anyone want to read it? And what results to I expect once I get it there?

The nice part about writing in journal form, as in just for me, is I can get my thoughts out and then save and be done. That’s all it takes. But then I’m frustrated that I’m not sharing it with anyone, because I want other people to read what I write. I want them to think it’s good, and valid, and inspiring. I want them to want to read it. And so maybe I can just writie a blog. The nice part about blogs is I can just write and post and then leave it there. A few dozen people will read, and no one will comment, but it is there. I shared it and now I can move on. But I’ve blogged hundreds of times and the audience isn’t wide enough to make a living as a writer, and that is maddening. And then I ask myself if that was my goal in the first place, to make a living, and if so, I have to network and change my tactics and increase my audience size, and all of those things drive me mad, so maybe it’s just easier not to write in the first place. But I’ve tried that too, and it doesn’t work.

This is my fourth day in Halifax. I needed this week. It restored my spirit. I miss my children, my boyfriend, my friends, my home, my routine, but these few days have allowed me to slip back into myself and find peace and inspiration again, something that has been missing for months. I’ve been walking again and exploring. I’ve exercised every day. My eating has been healthy. I’ve blogged four days in a row, about Canada, and music, and the ocean. My spirit and heart and gut and brain are all in a line again. And here I am writing about writing.

Sigh. Such drama within me about all of this.

I miss my kids, my family, my life, but I’m not ready to go home. I want to be selfish and stay here for a month. I want to develop a routine that centers around writing, balanced by sex, nutrition, and fitness, friendship and discovery, the energy I feel here, the ocean, the sense of wonder. I want to create something incredible, and back at home, it’s so hard to cultivate the discipline and freedom that that requires. I want to stay until I get lonely and sad, and then I want to push through that loneliness and sadness, using the emotions as fuel to make what I’m writing even more amazing. I want to stay until Halifax feels routine, and then stay a month longer until what I’ve written is perfect (whatever it is), complete, and then I edit it into something even better. I want to write. When I return home, I’m going to go back to feeling contained, unless I change some things, and those change scare me.

Yesterday morning, I woke up early, at 6 am, just to see the sunrise. I slipped on jeans, shoes, and a jacket. I grabbed a book to read, planning to sit in a big Adirondack chair near the water and watch the sunrise over the bay. I was perfectly at peace, despite my sore back and hungry stomach. I walked outside and down the dock, book in hand, and I watched the water ripple, all dark blacks and blues. The chilly breeze blew against me, carrying the scent of salt and open water, and it was perfection.

A super-handsome 19-year old jogged by and nodded at me, then he turned around. Breathing heavily, he looked me right in the eyes as he spoke.

“Hi there, do you mind if I ask what you do for a living?”

“I’m a writer,” I said, smiling at his curiosity.

“It’s just that, I don’t know, if I see someone out here on the dock this early, carrying a book, that’s the kind of person I want to know,” he said. He extended a hand. “I’m Brett. I want to write, too. May I ask what you write?”

Canadians are so damn polite, I thought. “I’m Chad. Well, I write lots of things. Depends on what is cooking in my brain. I’ve done comic books. I have a memoir out. I just finished a true crime documentary. I blog. I write essays, journals, poetry. But I find myself not writing far more than I actually write.”

“You’re extremely interesting. Can I ask for your Instagram? I’d like to message you later and maybe ask you some more questions?”

I smiled at his bizarre blend of confidence and curiosity. There was no flirtation here, just human connection. I felt strangely seen. “I’d like that, sure. Let’s meet for coffee tomorrow, before I return to the States.”

He took down my information, shook my hand again, then grinned. “I gotta run to keep my leg pump on. I’m doing a 75-day challenge of self-improvement. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Chad. Enjoy the sunrise.” And then he jogged away.

I muttered to myself with a smile. “Well, that just happened,” and then I turned back to the water and saw a harbor seal breach the surface, it’s black nose with long whiskers making a loud exhale sound, sending small rivulets of water into the air. “Oh my god,” I whispered, watching the creature for the next several minutes with absolute wonder before he disappeared again. The sun sent pink streamers across the water and the breeze blew and I felt temporary, and perfect.

After a day of adventures, I met Brett for coffee the next day. He greeted me with a smile and a firm handshake. “So, Chad, tell me your story. How did you become a writer?”

I laughed at how he just jumped right in, and I wished I’d had that confidence at his age. When I was 19, I was knocking on doors, trying to convince others to join a religion I didn’t really believe in. I was depressed, shut down, confused, and bound up. This young man was looking for inspiration everywhere, so confidently.

“That’s a very long story,” I said. We sat down with hot mugs of coffee and I started sharing.

One woman stood in front of the others, central. 24 women lined up behind her. They were all dressed the same, simply, elegantly. Many, if not most, of them were First Nations or descendants.

Blue shimmering cloths were strewn about the floor, representing water. The women moved among the cloths as they sang and danced. They stepped in the imaginary water, spread it on their hands, splashed it on each other, looked upon it in wonder.

The woman in front told a long story, mixed with song. She spoke in a childlike voice of wonder, with kindness and curiosity, rage and pain in her voice. She spoke of revering water, of feeling like it was her mother and that she belonged in it. She cried as she spoke of the pain of the ocean, its limited resources, its pollutions, the endangered sea creatures. She screamed in rage as she addressed the apathy of men. The women’s choir moved in unison behind her, reacting to her emotions, feeling everything she was feeling.

The performance took place in the middle of the Maritime Museum. The backdrops were literal sailboats and blue paint, wooden masts and wave patterns. It was haunting. In the right company, it could have been silly. But here, with these people in this place, it arrested me. I was deeply moved.

The next morning, I got up early to see the sunrise. I walked down the hill to the shoreline and walked along the docks. There were a few dog walkers, a couple holding hands in Adirondack chairs, a few scattered joggers. I found a seat at the edge of the water and looked to the horizon. The breeze hit my skin and a shiver passed through me.

My eyes moved to the water’s surface. It rippled and billowed. It was dark black and blue, with white cascades across the top. The sun peaked over the hill and reflected on its surface. I took a moment to consider the landscape I’d been walking across the last few days, with rolling hills, long flat stretches, higher peaks, and different types of soil and plants growing out of each area. All of that diversity, in soil and terrain and plants, extended out there, under the water. It was shallow and deep, hilly and flat, with different patches of sediment and plant life everywhere. The water could extend up over the land or recede farther. It was sheer power, sheer beauty.

The angry, compassionate, pained, joyful chorus of women from the night before passed through my head, and I breathed in deeply.

A head bobbed out of the water and I gasped aloud. “Oh my God,” I whispered in awe. I gestured to the couple in the Adirondacks. “Look!” A large dark brown head, a black nose, extending whiskers, dark black eyes. The creature was breathing. I could hear it breathing. If I laid down on the dock and reached out, I could touch it. The harbor seal was on its back, its face and flippers poking out of the water. My sons would have screamed with joy. They love seals. I watched the creature, lazily floating, diving back under, floating more, for about fifteen minutes, before it descended and didn’t rise again.

A few hours later, I climbed on board the Kawartha Spirit. It was windy and raining as the captain called out, “All right, guys, let’s do ‘er!”, and the boat pulled away from dock. An elderly man, a local, talked for nearly two hours about the history of the port as we moved out into the bay, toward the deeper ocean. He cracked Dad jokes every few minutes, and I groaned at everyone of them. “If anyone yells man overboard, we’ll save ya! Never had to yell woman overboard yet, women are much too sensible to jump in, less’n a man pushed ’em, then they prob’ly deserved it!” and “You might see snowshoe hares on the horizon but don’t get too close or they’ll run away! In Canada, we call that a receding hare-line!” and “You may see men drinking while fishing over on the shoals. Their wives want them to come home, but they prefer their whiskey on the rocks!”

The boat moved with the waves, sloshing side to side, as the man recounted the different kinds of marine life that could be seen here in the harbor. “The farther you go out, the bigger the animals get!” Mackerel, herring, bluefin tuna, Atlantic sunfish. Lobsters and crabs. Lots of seals, but mostly the harbor kind. Fin whales, minke whales, harbor porpoises, white whales that are critically endangered (less than 400 left in the world), pilot whales, humpback whales. Cormorants, gulls, and thresher birds. On the shore, beavers, brown bears, raccoons, coyotes, caribou, lynx. At one point, the boat stopped to pull in a lobster cage. He showed us three large lobsters (and one frightened rock crab) talked about their reproductive cycles, their life spans, how they can regrow limbs, how they never stop growing until they die, then he let them go.

The boat pulled out farther as he discussed the impact of Hurricane Juan, the military bases on various islands in the 1700s, and during World Wars 1 and 2. He talked about U-Boat fights and sunken ships. He spoke with reverence about the Native Americans who’d lived in this region for thousands of years.

I gazed at the dark grey water with wonder before I spotted the white bird with the golden cap. Later, after asking, I learned it was a gannet, but some call it a dive-bomber. It has water-proof feathers, I was told, and special membranes that close over its eyes so it can be protected in the water. I watched the impressive bird fly high into the sky, then dramatically arc down to the water, plunging in at full speed with a loud splash. It was under for nearly thirty seconds before emerging with a fish in its talons. It sat atop the water a moment, spread its wings, and flew away. Then I saw a porpoise fin and three more harbor seal heads bob up. There was life. Everywhere.

The wind shifted and the boat twisted horribly from side to side, like a massive teeter totter. It rolled heavily in the waves and I felt myself go green for the next 20 minutes. I put my head down on the table and breathed evenly until we were back on land.

Later, I watched the sun set. The water turned black again. The gulls went quiet. And I turned my back to the ocean, thinking of plastics, and oil spills, and hurricanes, and how I, we, all of us are very, very fragile, and very, very temporary, while the ocean remains.